Pride and Hate
by Kei Tree
Summary: A dark one parter a reckless wreck, Sarah deals with the consequences of her pride.


AN: Well, its certainly been awhile since I've posted here! Welcome back one and all. I   
hope some of you still remember me. =) If not, hello, hello, if so, its been too long. Hope   
ya'll had wonderful holidays. This one parter wanted to be written. Its dark, so be prepared.   
I'll try to write something lighter later perhaps. Thank you SO much to all the readers who   
have stuck by me and reviewed and emailed. Ya'll rock my world. I read each and every   
review, twice. I truly do.  
  
And yes, I'm behind on my Laby reading as well as my reviews. If ya'll have any suggestions   
on some new good reads I'd love to hear em. I recognize some of the wonderful writers from   
months ago but there's many a new face!  
  
Also, to Amber Evans Potter who read and reviewed almost half of my stories in a day, thanks   
first for all the "review cookies" and second, you had me in stitches. I didn't write all   
my depressing stuff in one sitting but I bet I look like one big poster child for angst if   
you read all my Laby one parters together! LOL Not that this one is any better...   
  
Aright, enough Kei ramblings... on with the show! (Standard disclaimers apply.)  
  
  
  
  
********************************** Pride and Hate ******************************  
  
  
She was wild, like a panther or a lion or any other cat that could slink on silent paws through   
the warm, damp jungle. There was something in her that could never be tamed, should never be   
tamed, a roughness, a hardness, a darkness that filled her eyes. Sarah Williams lived   
recklessly, dangerously, fast cars, fast money, fast men.   
  
She had grown up in the span of a single night, in thirteen hours spent lost in an enchanted   
maze. She had shed childhood as she stood defiantly before the fierce gaze of the powerful   
Goblin King.   
  
She cared for nothing except for the brother she once abhorred, not even about herself. Grades   
slipped as she begun to date and sneak out. Her father and stepmother shook their heads but   
did nothing. They hadn't been able to control her as a child; they had no hope of controlling   
her as a woman.   
  
College was worse with its cheap beer and eager boys, so earnest and arrogant in their newly   
discovered swaggers. Sarah loved them all, the best she could, and tried, desperately, never   
to sleep alone.   
  
She couldn't bear the silence. Couldn't stand her tears. Couldn't stand herself when she   
tried to sleep as the shadows lengthened and the moon rose high in the perfect darkness of   
midnight. Couldn't stand to toss and turn because she was terrified of rolling over and   
confronting the woman she had become; the person she detested.   
  
And sometimes, sometime not even their featureless faces and shapeless arms could keep her   
fears at bay and she'd wake, panting, sobbing, held in the arms of men, boys, she wanted so   
badly to care for. In the arms of men and boys she never would.   
  
**********************************************************************************  
  
Sarah held one this night, was held, offered her full lips up eagerly as a fish searching for   
water or a fowl for air. The man, the boy, accepted her offering and loved her quickly in   
the darkness, in the heat, as her drapes moved restlessly in the open window of her dorm.   
Her roommate was out for the night and Sarah was glad she didn't have to make introductions   
or excuses. She was tired, so tired of it all.   
  
Of pretending to care what others thought when she herself didn't. Of remembering names. It   
was easier to be numb and let the anonymous lover kill her a little more with his kisses and   
urgent caresses. It was easier not to notice the tears the rolled silently down her cheeks.   
Easier not to acknowledge her inner pain.   
  
She watched when they were finished as he ponderously rolled over before beginning to snore,   
sated and lost in the dreams that were denied her. Some nights, some nights she even missed   
her nightmares.   
  
Sarah reached out with trembling fingers and hesitantly stroked the warmth of her one night   
stand's back, needing, if only for a moment, to reassure herself of his existence. To reassure   
herself that she wasn't alone. But sleep, ever elusive, still wouldn't come.   
  
With a sigh she deftly slid out of the small dorm bed, a blanket wrapped around her so that it   
trailed on the ground, and made her way to the open window. She parted the curtains and let   
her face be bathed in soft moonlight and her heart- her heart squeezed suddenly with a sharp   
and terrible pain that left her breathless and terrified.   
  
Sarah rested her brow against the cool wood of the windowpane as her hand clenched and   
unclenched in a fist against the wall. Her unpainted nails drew imaginary lines down the wall  
until they dug so tightly into her palm she knew she'd bleed. But it wasn't enough. It would   
never be enough.   
  
She would never be enough.   
  
Sarah ignored the breeze that blew a cool caress on her cheek and the rumble of distant,   
looming thunder, but she couldn't ignore the flash and smell, the smell of magic. She could   
pretend though. Could pretend by not acknowledging the smell of cinnamon and hazel and,   
underneath it all, peaches, ripe and ready to eat. Could pretend that her heart wasn't nearly   
beating through her chest, or that the Goblin King wasn't standing before her.  
  
Or she could until he spoke.   
  
"You're killing yourself."   
  
She shuddered as his voice, cold and detatched and so imperious, rolled over her like a wave   
and god, she wanted to drown. Drown in it, in him. Sarah didn't look up as she answered.   
She didn't know how.   
  
"Some days I wish I was already dead."   
  
Silence hung heavy and painful between them and she wasn't ready for the hard grip of his   
gloved, ever gloved hand curling around her upper arm to wrench her up, up to face him in all   
his splendor.   
  
Jareth hadn't changed a bit. He was just as beautiful, and just as deadly as she remembered,   
as she would always remember because, try as she might, she couldn't erase him from her heart   
and mind and memory. She'd give anything to erase him from her memory.   
  
He stared at her though, first in shock, then in a sort of brief, soft pity that made his   
fierce gaze gentler and, in some ways, so much more terrible. Long fingers reached up to brush   
the dark make up around her eyes, the harsh vermilion of her mouth, and the tracks her tears   
had left.   
  
"Oh Sarah..."  
  
And she wanted to pull away, needed to, on some primal level that was telling her she couldn't   
survive this again, hadn't the first time. She had been a child then. She was so much weaker   
as a woman now.   
  
But she couldn't, even with everything inside of her screaming, she couldn't. Jareth was   
the Goblin King, perfect, remote, sculptured, dangerous, lithe in his darkness, absolute in his   
power, and helpless as the broken woman before him melted into his arms as she began to sob.   
  
He rocked her and accepted her weight as she threaded needy arms around his neck and waist and   
buried her face in the silk of his extravagant shirt. He shook his head and with a glance cast   
a spell on the sleeping man in her bed so that, whatever the outcome of their conversation, he   
would not wake prematurely.  
  
"Why?" Jareth finally asked when her sobs had quieted to mere weeping. She flinched at the   
simple question and he hated that he couldn't help the fingers that slid through her hair,   
stroking it tenderly, possessively.   
  
"Because I wanted to feel, because I didn't, because..."   
  
Words unsaid hung between them with a weight greater than their previous silence. With a cry   
she tore herself out of his embrace, arms wrapped around herself as she shivered, alone, so   
god damn alone, wrapped in her thin blanket before the too preceving stare of the Goblin King.   
  
"You didn't love them, any of them..."   
  
Sarah moaned at his words and knew fresh tears poured down her face but she didn't care.   
Suddenly cared. Was furious in a rush that killed the numbness.   
  
"How could I? I couldn't have loved them, can't! You can't love when you're in love!"   
  
Jareth sucked in a breath, deep and quick as she paled before him. The shadows hid her face   
but he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, nearly hear her hear beating madly, like   
a trapped thing. The Goblin King took a single small step forward.   
  
"Who do you love Sarah?" he asked, demanded, arm outstretched, inquiring, before he let it drop   
woodenly to his side. He didn't need her to answer.   
  
She watched him with hooded eyes.   
  
"Why?" came the anguished cry. "Why?!" and he flung his arm out at the sleeping man and the   
memory of all the others that had come in a broken line before him. Sarah backed away from   
his impassioned plea for understanding, shaking, trembling from head to toe as he stared at   
her, agonized and humbled. "Why?" The last was a whisper, broken torn from disbelieving   
lips.  
  
"Because we all have our pride."   
  
"Pride lead you to this?!"   
  
She winced at his tone, at the barely controlled rage that seemed to seep out of her and into   
him like a poison. "No," she whispered, her own voice shattered, "Childish pride made me   
reject you when you offered me the world. A woman's pride kept me from calling you to my side   
every day I was without you. Hate drove me to this."   
  
He stared at her, trying to understand, comprehend, but failing. For all his perfection, even   
Goblin Kings had their faults. "Hate of me?" came the quiet question.   
  
A queer smile twisted Sarah Williams's mouth as she replied with an equally quiet answer, "No   
Jareth, hate of myself."  
  
Suddenly defeated, his anger melted away and he deflated before her. Two bruised souls gazed   
across at each other, the distance between them so much more vast than it appeared, and tried   
to decide where to move on to as the oblivious, nameless man snored softly in the background. 


End file.
